Rainravens

Rainravens

One Last Saturday Night (Rainravens)

It's tempting to say that Rainravens frontman and songwriter Andy Van Dyke has matured on the local trio's latest, One Last Saturday Night. It probably makes more sense, though, to simply say that the band's fourth full-length is better than their previous efforts (Rose of Jericho, Diamond Blur, and the self-titled debut). The Rainravens' style is best probably best described as "electric singer-songwriter"; they rock, yes, but never at the expense of the words or the moods created by the words. And with Saturday Night especially, they're confident, boasting strong songs and the occasional lyric that stands out as poetic on its own (like, say, "the last lonely one set in motion by the sunset gun" from "Love To Burn"). Even the potentially cliché-ridden Kennedy assassination song ("Zapruder Blues") works, a bluesy shuffle aching for the return of stolen hopes and dreams. None of that says anything to indicate their previous work was "immature," but Van Dyke has assumed a certain level of world-weariness with Saturday Night that may be the final piece in his puzzle -- witness his reading of the line "I hit the road, I beat it like a drum" in "Where That Came From." And as far as his bandmates and studio guests like Mark Hallman and Gurf Morlix, there's no question that they, too, "hit it" just fine.